rraisley

I'm looking to add a listing of Favorites or an Address Book to my 2020 E450's COMAND Navigation System, and haven't found it. This is what I've found so far:

I can choose a Previous Destination (rather than one I want to enter, which is a pain), press Left and Save it as a "Favorite". My 3 choices are Save to HOME (okay, did that one), WORK (I'm retired - that one is useless) or to Favorites. If I choose Favorites, it wants to put a huge, single icon, on my Favorites icon screen, for each address! I'm likely to have a dozen or two addresses I'd like programmed in, so using Favorites for my address book is ridiculous.

Using the Mercedes Me [Connect - I get confused what's what], I entered several addresses in as Favorites. (Menu at top left on Android > Mobility > Click on Where do you want to go, then show list of Favorites, or add new ones. I can title them and all. The addresses I entered in this app appear here, but are never transmitted to the Mercedes. At least not as a list, which is what I expected. And I certainly don't want to enter an address manually on my phone, save it as a favorite on my phone, then use my phone to send the address to the Mercedes. That would be silly.

Using Voice, I can ask the Nav system to go to "Navigate to John Smith". But this is a phone, with everyone's phone numbers in it. I've added almost no one's address in there, although I could take the (considerable amount of) time and do it.

I can enter all the addresses in manually, one at a time, or by voice, begin navigation to them, then stop navigation, so they appear in the Previous Destinations list. But I can't even add names or titles to any of them; they're just addresses, they're not sorted by name, etc., so that's no good.

So, every Nav system I've ever used has a listing of addresses, which you can enter by whatever method you want, and then save, whether it be called Favorites or Address Book or whatever, and then easily pull up from a listing. That's from a $75 TomTom, to a 15 year old Toyota. Where the heck is this done on my $80k+ Mercedes?

whoover

I navigate to "John Smith," where that's a name in my phone contacts. It works fine. At one point it broke and the dealer needed to upgrade my COMAND to the latest level, but it's worked fine ever since. If "call John Smith" works for a phone contact, "navigate to John Smith" should work. There's no reason to have a separate contact list for COMAND.

rraisley

Except I don't have John Smith's address in my phone contacts. And if I go through all my contacts, to try to guess whose house I /might/ want to go to, and enter them all manually, then if my wife is driving, and using her phone (an iPhone, while mine is a Samsung), I'll have to do the same thing all over again for her.

And what if you don't have a smartphone? The MB Nav system is completely unable to do pretty much anything?

There are a number of places I go to often, most of which I know how to get to, but depending where I am, I don't know the best way to get there: the Movies, my son's house, our best friend's house, Krogers, etc. Using other cars, it has been just so easy to hit Favorites, and choose the one I want. Favorites, for this purpose, are worthless with the MB. I tried navigating with voice tonight to my wife's hairdresser: COMAND gave me an identically named place over 100 miles away, with no choices. I have to say, this is the worst Nav system I've ever used. And I thought Acura's was poor (very unresponsive, iffy voice recognition, etc.), but at least it had a list of saved places. Heck, every time I go on vacation, I make a list of all the places we'll be going to (hotel, restaurants, attractions, relatives, etc.), then can easily choose what I want, when I want. I can't see this working with COMAND.

I tell you, it is downright embarrassing when you tell someone, or they notice, that your expensive "luxury" car won't do half the things their economy car, costing a third the price, will do. Yes, I know it does all the fancy driving stuff, but common everyday stuff - not so much.

whoover

I have a couple of favorites (like home) stored as nav targets on my * menu. It works fine. But for most nav targets, I find Android Auto/CarPlay (using Google Maps) works best. Maps voice recognition works so well, I've never felt the need to add them as contacts. But you certainly can add them as COMAND favorites if you wish.

whoover

OK, I see your problem. For me, the phone is the only logical repository of addresses. Or more precisely, Google, which automatically propagates them to any new phone I buy. (These addresses are the ones I want to have some permanence, as distinguished from the vacation stops I would only want temporarily.) So for my "permanent" contact addresses, I would only want to enter them once, probably on my computer, and have Google push them to my phone. The MB address book, automatically populated from the phone works perfectly. (BTW, it connects to both my phone and my wife's, so it's trivial to toggle the car's address book between hers and mine if we're both in the car. If only one of us is driving, it has the appropriate one automatically.)

Why you would want to enter your "permanent" contacts more than once per lifetime is beyond me, so having a separate interface for the car-only address book is not something I ever missed. Having Google push them to my phone and thus to my car is exactly what I want.

As far as the "temporary" point-of-interest addresses, I find Google Maps via Android Auto or CarPlay optimal. The voice recognition always works first time (as opposed to the pathetic MB internet search) and once you've selected a location as a Google Maps target, it's in the recent list that Maps shows you on-screen. Yes, it won't be there after you've Maps-navigated to 20 other destinations, but your vacation is over by then anyway.

Admittedly, if you want to work differently it's not very convenient, but it works great if you use your phone for permanent contact addresses and Maps via Android Auto for more transient contacts.

ua549

My permanent list of contacts & locations resides on my Windows 10 notebook in MS Office Outlook. It automatically updates my Android phone. Each time I enter the car it syncs with my phone. This setup is an easy way to maintain contact info, calendar, etc. in a single place. BTW my notebook also syncs with my wife's notebook and phone and hers with mine. I do not use Android Auto or any other Google products.

rraisley

Okay, looks like I need to find out how to enter or modify contacts on my PC and have it migrate or update to our phones. We use Verizon, and originally I'd enter the phone numbers (not addresses though) on their web site. That way, it would update to a new phone, etc. i do use MS Office Outlook, as well as Google products, but have never had anything migrate to the phone. I know I can do that with Google Calendar, but like other calendar's features better. I'll do a web search for this, but don't quite know what I'm looking for, so if you have any info to point me in the right direction, I'd appreciate it.

A slightly different question concerning phone calls and navigation to contacts. We many people in our contacts as: Smith, "Mary and John". Will "Call John Smith" normally work with that? If not, I'll have to reorganize all our phone listings.

whoover

1) Yes, you need to create a Google account if you don't have one, set up gmail if you don't already use it and set gmail up on your phone. It will let you automatically transfer your Verizon contacts to gmail.

2) Generally "Call John Smith" will work. Here again, it depends on whether you're using COMAND (which has the phone's contacts in its address book) or Android Auto (using the phone itself). The phone is smarter and almost always gets it first time. The car sometimes gets confused, but if you just say "call Smith" it will find the listing and verify the "line number" after it displays the possible contacts. (If it's actually a Smith and you know lots of them, it could be a problem).

That's why Android Auto is so great -- you're talking directly to you phone and Android is so smart. If you quickly lift the Voice button on your steering wheel, you're talking to COMAND. If you lift and hold for 1/2 second, you're talking to your phone via Android Auto. Or CarPlay as appropriate. But if you forget to plug your phone into the cable (needed for Android Auto or CarPlay), COMAND does a very decent job of finding your contacts by voice. It's just that the phone is better.

rraisley

I do have a Google account and email, although only for signing up for Google Store apps and such. I never actually /use/ gmail. And I never use, or have, email on my phone; I get too many emails, and that's what I have a computer for. Could this still work for setting up contacts?

whoover

Yes, you need to set up your Google mail on the phone to enable the syncing of contacts. You don't need to actually use gmail after setting it up. But you do need to allow syncing to keep your contacts current on the phone. Android is really a Google product, and a Google account (and gmail for contacts) is required to use it effectively.

rraisley

Not doing well with that so far. My Google Gmail account appears to only have 2 contacts. I installed Google Contacts, thinking that would help, but it just shows 2 contacts. Sync is on, but it doesn't see, or care about, all my phone Contacts. Tried a program called AirMore, to allow copying of contacts, pics, music and such over Wifi between PC and phone; it works great, but only reads one line of my addresses in contacts. I'll have to do a lot of research here, I think. But thanks for the suggestions.

ua549

As I posted above I put it all into MS Office Outlook (2010). The Windows app My Phone Explorer can sync contacts, calendar, notes, pictures, etc. between your PC and phone. Your phone can sync your contacts (phone #, address) with COMAND in your car.

whoover

https://writingtowardshappy.com/2013...acts-to-gmail/

rraisley

That looks interesting, but won't work on my wife's iPhone.